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Jason DeBoer-Moran

Free Software We're Most Thankful For [Thanksgiving]November 27

Dear free software developers: Before we American nerds sit down to our turkey and mashed potatoes today, know that your creations are at the top of the list of things we're most thankful for. Whether you're an indie hacker putting out the occasional script or an employee at a giant internet company building out a webapp with millions of users or a voluntary coder contributing to an open source project, we salute you this Thanksgiving in gratitude for all the things your work enables us to do every day. Short of covering you in candied yam kisses and cranberry sauce hugs, please accept our hearty thanks for your work. We like you. We really, really like you.

While our thanks goes out to ALL developers of ALL the free software we've featured on these pages, a few projects deserve special mention. On Monday we asked exactly what free software you're most thankful for, and thousands of votes later, we've boiled down the list to the top 40 or so. While we're offline for the day, feast your eyes and mouse on this prodigious list of some of the best free software we're most grateful for. Happy Thanksgiving! (Back to a more regular posting schedule tomorrow.)

The 46 Free Desktop Software Applications, Webapps, and Projects We

New Digsby installer loaded with bloat and advertsNovember 26

Shared by Jason DeBoer-Moran
I also had high hopes for digsby. This is downright sad.

Filed under: Internet, Windows, Freeware, Social Software

Until about 15 minutes ago I was a big Digsby fan. When I fired up the installer on my clean Vista x64 machine today, I was greeted with an unpleasant sight.

First off, you don't even download the actual installer from Digsby.com anymore - it's a downloader application. While I'm not a fan of downloaders in general, this one in particular got me all riled up.

Apart from half a dozen crapware install offers, the final screen before anything actually happened asked to change my homepage and switch my default search provider to Yahoo. I'm all for supporting an app, but this was more than I'm willing to tolerate from an installer.

Are you kidding me? Digsby, tell me you're kidding. Looks like it's time for me to give Pidgin another try.

I Want Sandy, Stikkit Close Doors December 8th [Webapps]November 26

Previously mentioned personal productivity web sites I Want Sandy and Stikkit are shutting their doors on Monday, December 8th, and judging by the volume of emails we've received from disappointed readers, a lot of you may be affected. Tech blog GigaOM suggests that the recent purchase of Values of n—the company that runs both apps—by Twitter may mean I Want Sandy's functionality could find its way to Twitter, but in the meantime, let's hear what you're planning to use as your personal assistant in the comments. Thanks to all who tipped!

you're a social media specialist?November 24

[After reading Pat Phelan's "Are Social Media experts surplus to requirements in a recession?", I couldn't resist...]

Obama's FCC transition co-chair is a WoW playerNovember 20

Shared by Jason DeBoer-Moran
That's my guildy!

Filed under: Shaman, Analysis / Opinion, Fan stuff, Virtual selves, Guilds, Odds and ends

I've had a political dream for a while now that I think all of us WoW players can agree on: someday, I hope, we will have a President in the White House that plays videogames. We're not quite there yet, but we're closer -- apparently, Obama's FCC transition co-chair is a WoW player, and has played in two different endgame guilds, including Joi Ito's famous We Know guild. This is a guy who knows all about the communities that these MMOs create, and just how awe